254th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

254th Infantry Division

Troop registration number of the 254th Infantry Division

Troop registration
active August 26, 1939 to May 8, 1945
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Armed forces army
Type Infantry division
structure See: Outline
Second World War Western campaign
Battle of Dunkirk

War against the Soviet Union 1941–1945

Leningrad blockade
Battle of Demyansk
Third Ladoga battle
Kamenez-Podolski battle
Commanders
Please refer: List of commanders
insignia
Identification symbol rising horse

The 254th Infantry Division was a major military unit of the Wehrmacht in the German Reich .

history

The division was formed on August 26, 1939 in Wehrkreis VI in Detmold as the 4th wave division from half of the supplementary units of the Wehrkreis.

The division attacked in May 1940 as part of the western campaign and reached Dunkirk .

On November 17, 1940, the division gave a third of its troops to the formation of the 320th Infantry Division : the staff of Infantry Regiment 454 and the III. Battalion of all three infantry regiments. In addition, the III. Department of Artillery Regiment 254, as well as parts of the division units. The taxes were replaced by new statements.

During the attack on the Soviet Union , the division fought its way across the Baltic States to Leningrad and then took positions on the Volkhov .

At the beginning of 1943, the division moved to the combat area south of Lake Ilmen and took part in the clearing of the Demyansk pocket : After the rail transport from Chudovo and Novgorod to the Staraya Russa area , the division moved on foot to the "hose" to Corps Group Hoehne to take along the battalions II./454, I./474 and II./484 in the section of the 225th Infantry Division at Lewoschkino, to replace the 225th Infantry Division by January 15, 1943, the bitter attacks on the land connection in the cauldron and together with the 123rd Infantry Division to secure the evacuation of the "Demyansk combat area". On February 27, 1943, the division went back behind the Robja line and took up positions at Staraya Russa.

Later the division, which was reclassified to a new type 44 division in the course of the year, moved back to the front on the Volkhov, but was transferred to Army Group South in early 1944 and got caught in the "wandering" Hube basin near Kamenets-Podolsk . After the breakout from the pocket, which was successful with heavy losses, the Grenadier Regiment 474 and III. Division of Artillery Regiment 254 disbanded on May 10, 1944 and replaced by the remains of the disbanded 82nd Infantry Division collected in the Buczacz area . On July 4, 1944, the remaining division group 82 was reclassified to Grenadier Regiment 474. The regiment was disbanded in April 1945 and replaced by the Grenadier (Fahnenjunker) Regiment 1238.

At the end of the war, the division was taken prisoner by the Soviets in the Deutsch-Brod area .

Storage and operational areas

Period corps army Army Group Operational area
September 1939 reserve 5th Army C. Eifel
October 1939 XXII. 4th Army B. Lower Rhine
December 1939 6th Army
May 1940 XXVI.
June 1940 Reserve. 18th Army A. Dunkirk
July 1940 VII. 16th Army Lille
August 1940 XXIII.
September 1940 XXXVIII. 9th Army Rouen
May 1941 I. 18th Army C. East Prussia
June 1941 XXXVIII. North Riga
August 1941 XXVI. Reval
September 1941 reserve Leningrad
October 1941 XXXIX. 16th Army Volkhov
December 1941 18th Army
January 1942 I.
November 1942 XXXVIII.
February 1943 II. Demyansk
March 1943 X. 16th Army Staraya Russa
April 1943 LIV. Leningrad
October 1943 XXVI. 18th Army
February 1944 XXXXVI. 1st Panzer Army south Hube boiler
April 1944
May 1944 LIX. 1st Panzer Army Northern Ukraine Tarnopoly
July 1944 XXIV. Carpathians
July 1944 XXIV.
August 1944 XI.
October 1944 A.
February 1945 XVII.
March 1945 VIII. 17th Army center Silesia
April 1945 XXVI. 1st Panzer Army Upper Silesia
May 1945 LXXII. Moravia

structure

  • Infantry Regiment 454 (from 1943 Grenadier Regiment with two instead of three battalions)
  • Infantry Regiment 474 (from 1943 Grenadier Regiment with two instead of three battalions)
  • Infantry Regiment 484 (from 1943 Grenadier Regiment with two instead of three battalions)
  • Fusilier Battalion 254 (from 1943)
  • Artillery Regiment 254
  • I./Artillerie-Regiment 52 ( surrendered on September 7, 1940 by Artillery Regiment 16 of the 16th Infantry Division , as it was converted into a tank division)
  • Engineer Battalion 254
  • Anti-tank department 254 (later tank destroyer department)
  • Reconnaissance Department 254
  • Field Replacement Battalion 254 (from 1943)
  • News Department 254
  • Divisional Supply Leader 254
  • Division Group 82 (Spring 1944)

Commanders

date Rank Surname
August 26, 1939 Lieutenant General Friedrich Koch
April 30, 1940 Lieutenant General Walter Behschnitt
May 1, 1942 Major general Friedrich Köchling
September 5, 1942 Major general Hellmuth Reymann
August 16, 1943 Lieutenant General Alfred Thielmann
December 31, 1944 Major general Richard Schmidt

Chiefs of Staff (Ia)

date Rank Surname
1939 major Ludwig Zoller
September 1940 major Gerhard Wagner
August 1942 Lieutenant colonel Hans-Jürgen Freiherr von Ledebur
June 1943 major Otto Walter
May 20, 1944 Lieutenant colonel Wolfgang Oldenburg

literature

  • Clemens Freiherr von Boenninghausen: 254th (Rhenish-Westphalian) Infantry Div. in the east 1941-1945. Self-published.
  • Werner Haupt: Demjansk, 1942. A bulwark in the east. Podzun, Bad Nauheim 1963, OCLC 10337054
  • Werner Haupt: Army Group North 1941–1945. Podzun, Bad Nauheim 1967, OCLC 3954438
  • Werner Haupt: Leningrad, Volkhov, Courland. Photo report of Army Group North 1941–1945. Podzun-Pallas-Verlag, Friedberg (Dorheim) 1976, ISBN 3-7909-0056-7 .
  • Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945 . Volume 8: The Land Forces 201–280 . 2nd Edition. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1979, ISBN 3-7648-1174-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence


Coordinates: 51 ° 56 '11.3 "  N , 8 ° 51' 58.2"  E